Bud Blake

(13 February 1918 - 26 December 2005, USA)

Bud Blake was born in Nutley, N.J., where he attended elementary and high school. He later studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City. Prior to this, he had sold some cartoons to The Judge magazine. In 1937, he joined an advertising firm, the Kudner Agency, as a paste-up boy. A three-year stint in the infantry in World War II briefly interrupted this career, which ended in 1957 when he left his position as an executive art director to create a cartoon panel, 'Ever Happen To You?' for King Features Syndicate.

Earlier, he had already contributed cartoons to the syndicate under varying titles like 'Office Hours', 'That Sinking Feeling' and 'Home Sweet Home'. Among his other clients were advertising firms and such magazines as Business Week and Family Circle.

Blake's award-winning series 'Tiger' was launched in 1965, and appeared in some 400 newspapers worldwide during the top of its popularity. 'Tiger' was a strip about a group of care-free little children, a little less virulent than 'Peanuts', but still with a sharp sence of humor. Blake drew the strip for nearly forty years until he was 85, and died two years after his retirement in Portland, Maine. Reruns of 'Tiger' are still syndicated by King Features.